| death instinct | The instinct of all living creatures toward self-destruction, death, or a return to the inorganic lifelessness from which they arose. Synonym: aggressive instinct. (05 Mar 2000) |
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| aggressive instinct | The instinct of all living creatures toward self-destruction, death, or a return to the inorganic lifelessness from which they arose. Synonym: aggressive instinct. (05 Mar 2000) |
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| herd instinct | Tendency or inclination to band together with and share the customs of others of a group, and to conform to the opinions and adopt the views of the group. Synonym: social instinct. (05 Mar 2000) |
| sexual instinct | The instinct of self-preservation and sexual procreation; the basic urge toward preservation of the species. Synonym: sexual instinct. (05 Mar 2000) |
| social instinct | Tendency or inclination to band together with and share the customs of others of a group, and to conform to the opinions and adopt the views of the group. Synonym: social instinct. (05 Mar 2000) |
| instinct | 1. Natural inward impulse; unconscious, involuntary, or unreasoning prompting to any mode of action, whether bodily, or mental, without a distinct apprehension of the end or object to be accomplished. "An instinct is a propensity prior to experience, and independent of instructions." (Paley) "An instinct is a blind tendency to some mode of action, independent of any consideration, on the part of the agent, of the end to which the action leads." (Whately) "An instinct is an agent which performs blindly and ignorantly a work of intelligence and knowledge." (Sir W. Hamilton) "By a divine instinct, men's minds mistrust Ensuing dangers." (Shak) 2. <zoology> Specif, the natural, unreasoning, impulse by which an animal is guided to the performance of any action, without of improvement in the method. "The resemblance between what originally was a habit, and an instinct becomes so close as not to be distinguished." (Darwin) 3. A natural aptitude or knack; a predilection; as, an instinct for order; to be modest by instinct. Origin: L. Instinctus instigation, impulse, fr. Instinguere to instigate: cf. F. Instinct. See Instinct. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
| life instinct | The instinct of self-preservation and sexual procreation; the basic urge toward preservation of the species. Synonym: sexual instinct. (05 Mar 2000) |
| attitude to death | Conceptual response of the individual to the various aspects of death, which are based on his psychosocial and cultural experience. (12 Dec 1998) |
| Black Death | <disease, organism> Yersinina pestis is a gram-negative, rod-shaped, faculatively anaerobic bacterial species in the family Enterobacteriaceae. It causes bubonic plaque, which is transmitted by rodent fleas. Historically known as the Black Plague, this disease devastated Europe and Asia in the 1300s. It still exists today and is characterised by sudden high fever, chills, excessively swollen and tender lymph nodes (buboes), followed by tissue bleeding and gangrene. Other complications include pneumonia and septicaemia. (12 Nov 1997) |
| brain death | Total cessation of brain function for 24 hours as manifested by absence of spontaneous movement, absence of spontaneous respiration, and absence of all brainstem reflexes. (12 Dec 1998) |
| rate, death | The number of deaths in the population divided by the average population (or the population at midyear) is the crude death rate. In 1994, for example, the crude death rate per 1,000 population was 8.8 in the united states, 7.1 in Australia, etc. A death rate can also be tabulated according to age or cause. (12 Dec 1998) |
| genetic death | Death of the bearer of a gene at any age before generating living offspring. May be compatible with good health and long life. See: genetic lethal. (05 Mar 2000) |
| maternal death | Death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days after the termination of gestation, irrespective of the duration and site of pregnancy and the cause of death; two periods are recognised in the 42-day interval: period 1 includes day 1 to day 7; period 2 includes day 8 to day 42. Maternal death's are further classified as: (05 Mar 2000) |
| maternal death rate | The number of maternal deaths that occur as the direct result of the reproductive process per 100,000 live births. See: rate. See: maternal death. (05 Mar 2000) |
| cause of death | Factors which produce cessation of all vital bodily functions. They can be analyzed from an epidemiologic viewpoint. (12 Dec 1998) |
| cell death | <cell biology> Cells die (nonaccidentally) either when they have completed a fixed number of division cycles (around 60, the Hayflick limit) or at some earlier stage when programmed to do so, as in digit separation in vertebrate limb morphogenesis. Whether this is due to an accumulation of errors or a programmed limit is unclear, some transformed cells have undoubtedly escaped the limit. See: apoptosis. (26 Mar 1998) |